With construction moving along on Queen Creek Unified School District’s third high school, the naming committee presented the governing board with three choices for naming the school.
The committee presented the three possible names to the governing board on Tuesday Sept. 14. The naming committee included a student from Queen Creek High School, the new school’s principal and parents.
The recommended names are suggestions, and the governing board does not have to pick from the list. The governing board has final say on the name. The new name for the school is expected to be decided at the governing board’s next meeting on Tuesday Oct. 19.
In naming or renaming a district school or other facility, the district will consider a name based on a significant factor in any of the following categories:
Historical landmarks
Geographical landmarks or formations
Vegetation indigenous to the site surroundings
Proper names of an individual deemed to have made significant or noteworthy contributions to the district and/or the community.
Here's a look at the names and the reasons why they were chosen.
Crismon High School
The new high school is located on Crismon Road. According to the naming committee report presented to the governing board, Crismon Road is named after Johnny Crismon and his wife Margaret, who moved to what became Queen Creek in 1946 to grow lettuce and carrots.
“Queen Creek’s first school, an old mule skinner cook shack, was located a half a mile north of Queen Creek Road on what is now Crismon Road. It would only be fitting that Queen Creek’s last high school called back to the community’s roots in education,” according to the report.
Harvest Peak High School
This name recognizes Queen Creek’s agricultural history. Also, the report notes that from the new school site people have a view of the Superstition and San Tan mountains.
“Both words taken together speak to our driving mission: to harvest students’ potential and talents so that they can reach their peak as an individual,” the report states.
Rittenhouse High School
The third name harks back to the founder of what is now Queen Creek. In 1924, Charles Rittenhouse established the Queen Creek Farms Co. on 1,000 acres of desert. He also created the town’s first wells, which made it possible to grow a number of crops in the area.
As a result of that work, the town was named Rittenhouse. According to the report, the town’s name was changed to Queen Creek when a new post office was established in 1947.
The report further states that “in 1924, construction of a new schoolhouse began on Ellsworth Road, one half mile north of the Rittenhouse railroad siding. Rittenhouse school, which was named after Charles Rittenhouse, served the community until 1982 and is now home to the San Tan Historical Society museum.”
The new high school is set to open in July 2022. It will be in south Queen Creek on a parcel of land in the Jordie Farms subdivision.
The new subdivision is, according to a town staff report, “generally east and west of the future Crismon Road alignment, north of Empire Road, west of Signal Butte Road, and south of Cloud Road.”
The staff report further states the 79.7 acres of the property that will house the new school is located south of Cloud Road, north of Riggs Road, east of the future Crismon realignment and west of the existing Maricopa acre-lots.
The School Facilities Board is funding the $56 million school, according to Matt Strom, associate superintendent of business and operations for QCUSD.
There is already a high school in the northern region, Eastmark, which graduates its first class of seniors in spring 2022. The central area of the district has Queen Creek High School.
In the first phase of the new southern high school, the School Facilities Board has approved construction for about 1,300 students.
The district announced last month that Elyse Torbert will be the principal of the new high school.
Janet Perez News Editor | Queen Creek &
San Tan Valley @AzNewsmedia
Meet Janet Janet Perez joined Independent Newsmedia as editor of the Queen Creek Independent and Florence Independent in 2020. She started her career in 1989 with the Gannett-owned El Paso Times. In 1992, she moved to Tempe and has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. She left Arizona for three years to work at New Mexico State University and Baylor University before returning to work at Arizona State University. Missing the business, she went back to journalism in 2017.
Community: A long-time pet owner, she supports animal welfare causes.
Education: University of Texas at El Paso with a BA in journalism and a minor in political science.
Random Fact: She had a head full of random facts.
Hobbies: Reading, watching documentaries, cooking and playing with her dogs.
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